As it turned out, the acid in the ants’ projectiles was much weaker than I expected, which was probably the only reason Vaozey didn’t lose her arm on the minute-long journey back to safe ground. Though it managed to eat through her clothing and the top layers of her skin, the liquid’s destructive progression through Vaozey’s flesh slowed once it began to encounter more dense tissue, and eventually came to equilibrium with her healing speed. It’s a good thing this is probably just concentrated formic acid and digestive enzymes, I thought as I started to remove the first sections of still-dissolving skin with my knife, tugging them away with force magic to avoid touching them. I can only imagine what might happen if healing magic trapped something like hydrofluoric acid inside the body.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Vaozey said about halfway through the removal process. She had been grunting in pain from the start, but I noticed that her vocalizations were becoming less frequent.

“Good,” I replied. “That’ll make the rest of this go quicker.” Throwing another section of skin to the ground, I watched out of the corner of my eyes as the ants examined it before leaving it alone like the others. I wasn’t sure if it was because they could smell the acid, or if it was because they knew the meat was Vaozey’s. Hopefully it’s the latter, I thought.

“No, I mean it’s numb,” Vaozey said, shifting her forearm as though she wanted to lift it, but couldn’t because it was too heavy. “I can’t feel my hand either.”

“Some kind of anesthetic?” I wondered aloud to myself.

“What do I do?” Vaozey asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. What kind of anesthetic would even stay stable inside of such a corrosive fluid? I asked myself, coming up with no answers.

“Are you kidding?” Vaozey snapped. “What happens if… it…” Abruptly, in the middle of her sentence, Vaozey’s rate of speech seemed to skid to a halt. I recognize that look, I thought, seeing her eyes struggling to focus. It’s not blue leaf, but it’s probably something similar.

“Keep your healing magic focused your elbow,” I said. “It’s highly unlikely that you’ll die from this, but you might fall unconscious. Your body will take care of the poison on its own.”

“Seytoydh great…” Vaozey mumbled. As I continued to take small sections of skin off her arm, Vaozey slumped against the wall behind her, taking deep and labored breaths. She was still partially conscious, or at least her eyes were open, but it was clear that she wouldn’t be able to move around until her body finished removing whatever she had been poisoned with from her blood. So not only does it digest the prey, it also stuns it for later capture, I thought, it’s a good thing that other nest we found was dead.

[The otherant colony used some kind of acid to attack us,] I wrote to the ants. Vaozey was still struggling to stay conscious in a cleared section of ground nearby, but appeared to be slowly recovering.

[? acid] the ants asked. Do they not know what it is, or is this some other kind of question? I wondered.

[The smaller, darker ants were eaten by larger, paler ones inside the nest who then turned into projectiles,] I tried to explain, hoping that the ants would understand me. The colony churned around me, an indication that they were thinking deeply, then began writing words back.

[Yuwniht nest Vaozey ? invade otherant,] they asked.

[Yes,] I replied, relieved that the ants had seemingly figured out the situation. The response I got was the same shifting figure of an ant turning into a circle, then another ant word that appeared to depict some kind of spiked figure that I couldn’t intuit the meaning of. Maybe the figure of the ant turning into a circle literally just depicts the acid attack, I thought. [What does that mean in Uwrish?] I asked, getting another churn before words came as a response.

[Defend otherant nest use,] the ants said. As I was trying to figure out if I had missed a word, they also added [magic], making the sentence parse much more cleanly. They almost look unsure of themselves, I thought, looking at the word and noting that it was shifting around more than the others.

“Seyt,” Vaozey grunted, staggering to her feet as she regained full consciousness.

“You should probably sit down,” I advised. “Just being conscious doesn’t mean the poison is out of your system yet.”

“What are those seytoydh ngaazmayjh ants saying?” Vaozey asked, slowly plodding over to where I was communicating with a lump of mud. When she finally reached me, her legs simply gave out from under her, sending her into a painful kneeling position with a thump.

“The acid was some kind of magic, I think,” I replied. “I’m not sure if I’m misreading it, but they seemed to be hesitant to use the word magic.”

“Let me see,” Vaozey mumbled, blinking slowly a few times before her eyes re-centered on the mud.

[The attack the colony used was magic?] I asked.

[Magic ---,] the ants replied, showing the figure of the ant turning into a circle again. I wanted to ask them exactly what they meant, but I realized I couldn’t draw a moving figure, so I wasn’t sure how to.

[What other tricks do they have?] Vaozey scrawled, her words coming out noticeably more clumsy than mine. The ants thought about her question for a moment, then began to reply.

[Stoneman fleshman trick how ? many,] they asked.

“Are these little npoytz being cheeky with me?” Vaozey snapped after I finished translating the last word.

“I think they’re trying to suggest that it’s not really possible to answer the question completely,” I replied. “Let me try something.” Turning back to the mud, I wrote out a new question: [What kind of magic can ants use?] Though I was expecting to see the ant turning into a circle character again, I wasn’t expecting the half-dozen other characters that followed, each presumably depicting another kind of magic I hadn’t yet seen. Actually, the ant disappearing into nothing character might be whatever made those snapping sounds when the pods were launched at us, I thought.

[Understand ?] the ants asked.

[Not completely,] I replied. [Can you use magic to assist in combat? Why aren’t you using it in your battle right now?] The words just barely fit on the mud.

[Magic using now battle sameant otherant,] the ants replied. So they are using it, just not the acid pods, I thought.

[Why not use the acid attacks?] I asked. [If you could launch a few of those to give us sections to walk on, we could cross the otherant swarm.]

[Can’t] the ants replied.

“Can’t or won’t?” Vaozey demanded, and I wrote out her question.

[Can’t] the ants repeated.

“They’re bullshitting us,” Vaozey scowled.

[Can you also use the acid if your nest is broken into like the otherant colony, or are you simply unable to at all?] I asked. The ants took a bit longer than usual to parse the question.

[Nest only rupture trigger magic acid,] the ants replied.

“So they won’t, then, and they’re just lying about it,” Vaozey said.

“Maybe,” I replied, thinking about exactly what had happened before the acid was formed and launched at us.

“How could it be ‘maybe’?” Vaozey asked. “They just told us they can do it, but they won’t do it unless the nest is ruptured. That means they can do it, they’re just holding it back.” No that’s not it, I thought.

“Who do you think we’re talking to right now?” I asked her.

“The ants,” Vaozey replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Exactly,” I replied. “We’re not talking to one ant, or even a group of them, we’re talking to all of them.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Vaozey asked, sounding confused.

“Can you force your heart to stop beating?” I asked, grasping for and finding a near-perfect analogy.

“Why would I ever want to-” Vaozey began.

“You have to think about these ants like one living thing, not a colony,” I explained. “The entity we’re talking to right now is made up of all of them, and I think its brain is spread out along all of them as well. If it helps, maybe you could say they all share one soul, though I’m not sure that applies here. That’s why it didn’t understand what I asked it early on when I was talking about individual ants, it doesn’t normally even conceive of itself as having individual parts. From its own point of view, it is one entity.”

“But there are millions of them,” Vaozey countered.

“There are trillions of cells in your body right now,” I replied. “Millions of times more than there are ants in this colony. Yet, you are one person.” The bumps on their head are for sharing information, I thought, probably through either infrared or some kind of radio wave transmission. The increased response time across the swarm as a result of this allows them to have a single gestalt intelligence with enough coherence to be individualized.

“What the seyt is a sehl?” Vaozey scoffed.

“The smallest part of your body that could be said to be alive and also you,” I replied. “It doesn’t matter, the point is that this one swarm is like a brain and a body all at once. I’m guessing that the acid magic isn’t a conscious thing that it can will itself to do, it’s a reflexive threat response. Asking it to use it intentionally would be like asking you to stop your own heart, or deliberately flex your muscles in a way that breaks your bones, or even sneeze on command.”

“That’s sounds like a lot of guesswork based on very little,” Vaozey replied.

“Watch,” I said, gesturing to the mud. “I’ll ask them about the details and they’ll confirm it.”

“They could lie,” Vaozey reminded me.

“Still, watch,” I said, putting my finger into the mud. [You can only use acid when the nest is broken into,] I wrote, as a statement.

[Yes,] the ants wrote back.

[You are unable to use acid no matter how hard you try otherwise,] I wrote, glancing at Vaozey.

[Otherant some can sameant no,] the ants replied.

[The specific colony we are fighting can?] I asked.

[No probably,] the ants quickly clarified. [Colony cannot enemy acid use intentionally.]

“See?” I said.

“Could still be lying,” Vaozey muttered.

[What about the explosions?] I asked. [To launch the acid, the otherant colony used some kind of small explosions, or what sounded like explosions.] The ants made the “ant disappearing into nothing” symbol again, then began to reply with words.

[Intentional,] they confirmed, and as they cleared off of the mud one lone ant remained in place. A moment later, it curled up on itself, then popped as though it was filled with a few grains of gunpowder and set alight. Vaozey flinched, but I didn’t, since I knew what to expect. It’s some kind of chemical magic, I concluded. When it was just the acid it could have been something that was always present in their bodies, but there’s no way they’re that volatile when they’re just walking around, and it can’t be from an internal chemical mixture or they would explode when crushed.

[You used magic to make that ant explode,] I wrote.

[Yes,] the ants confirmed.

[Can you make the explosion stronger?] I asked.

[Cannot,] the ants replied, and I grunted in response. Then how did they manage to launch the acid balls with such force? I wondered, Maybe it was a different technique?

[Can you use force magic?] I asked.

[?] the ants replied.

[Magic to move something large very quickly, or without touching it,] I tried to explain.

[? ?] the ants replied, clearly indicating that they were more confused than before.

[Here, I will demonstrate, watch,] I wrote, taking a coin out of my wallet and putting it on the mud. The ants nearby stopped moving, then forced a structure that I was slowly coming to think of as a “meta-compound eye.” Once I was sure they were looking, I grabbed the coin with force magic, spinning it around a bit and levitating it without making direct contact. Even after I put the coin down, the ants didn’t stop staring, taking nearly thirty seconds before they relaxed and another thirty seconds of churning before making their response.

[Cannot,] the ants replied finally.

[You don’t know how to use that kind of magic, even unintentionally?] I asked, just to be sure.

[Magic Yuwniht used ?] the ants asked.

[Yes,] I wrote back, furrowing my brow. Maybe this is why they were confused about using the word earlier, I thought.

[Yuwniht change die not,] the ants replied. Stared at the floating hologram translation for a moment, then looked at Vaozey, who was doing the same thing.

“Do you know what that means?” she asked.

“No,” I replied, but even as I spoke my brain was putting pieces of information together, painting a picture of what the ants thought of as magic, and why they might not understand it. Both kinds of magic they’ve used have been related to transforming the chemical composition of their bodies, I thought. Well, actually they’re probably using magic to communicate as well, but what if they don’t realize that ability is magic, like how most humans don’t realize that rapid healing is magic?

[Ant magic changes the contents of an ant body?] I asked.

[Magic use kill ---,] they replied.

[Always?] I asked.

[Yes,] they confirmed. [Fleshman magic stoneman different ?] So they’ve had enough human contact to know Uwrish, but not to know this? I thought, That doesn’t make any sense.

“Using magic kills them?” Vaozey asked. “How does that work.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe they just don’t know how to use it without killing themselves, or maybe they just think it’s only magic if it kills them. I’m not sure. The important part is, the enemy probably can’t use those acid balls on demand.” As much as I wanted to know more, I had a feeling that I could spend several days asking questions and still not be done, so I decided to refocus on the task at hand. [The enemy nest is at the back of the chasm,] I wrote. [We can break into it, but we can’t reach it.]

[Strong ? otherant attacks,] the ants asked.

[Yes, the closer we get, the more they resist,] I explained. [We need to cooperate and coordinate our attacks.]

[Act colony Yuwniht sameant Vaozey one,] the ants said.

[Yes,] I replied. [Vaozey and I need to eat, then we will have to push the line again to recover her mace. After that, we will retreat, then organize a plan.]

[Understood,] the ants replied, though I had my doubts they did.

Whatever the poison was, it contained some kind of vasodilator, which presented a bit of a problem for Vaozey’s blood pressure. As long as she was sitting on the ground, she was fine, but the second she stood up she would become woozy. Even after eating, it took her almost half an hour to be able to stand up and walk normally, and she still said that she “felt strange”. She could quantify exactly what “strange” meant, but she seemed to be acting a bit more jumpy than usual.

At my request, the sameant colony made their initial push for us to get the mace back. Insectoid flesh surged like a wave, crashing into the front battle line and spilling over into enemy territory. At the same time, Vaozey and I stepped into carefully-created gaps in the formation, advancing until we had to jump back into the enemy group of ants to continue. All in all the sameant colony’s push probably got us five meters of distance, but it was enough that we got almost all of the way to the mace before the otherant colony realized what was happening.

After grabbing the mace, ants began to rain down on us, but no acid balls started forming. The ruptured chamber of the nest had already been cleared and the pale workers had fled deeper into its tunnel system, so our presence didn’t trigger whatever reflex had been responsible for the attack last time. Still, after tossing the mace to Vaozey, we quickly retreated again to regroup, neither of us wanting to spend too much time near the site of the attack.

“Gods and spirits, I do not want to go back in there,” Vaozey spat, rustling her hair and pulling out a few errant ants. I was also picking off members of the otherant colony from my forearms, where they had apparently mistaken my clothing for my skin and tried to bite me. Beneath us, the sameant colony was watching for the enemies hitting the ground, and quickly eviscerating any of them that were still alive before carrying the bodies away.

“We have to, at least one more time,” I reminded her.

“Yeah yeah,” Vaozey grumbled. “Gods, they’re everywhere. I’m going to be pulling ants out of my clothes for days.” She shuddered, picking out another squirming insect from around her collarbone and crushing it between her fingertips.

“Just be thankful they can’t seem to inject that same acid poison with their bites,” I replied, pulling yet another ant off of my sleeve. Though it struggled against me, it didn’t even try to use any form of magic, simply allowing me to toss it to the ground where it was killed by its enemies without much resistance.

“Don’t tempt fate like that,” Vaozey warned. “Just get the ones on our side to help us again before this poison wears off and I start thinking rationally again.” I was already intending to do just that, I thought, walking over to the section of the wall that had mud on it from earlier.

[How far can you push into their swarm?] I asked. The ants tried to show me some kind of visual representation of what I had asked for, but they rendered the entire battlefield as two flat blobs, so I wasn’t sure exactly what the display represented. [Deeper than before?] I asked.

[Yes,] they replied.

[Deep enough to reach the back wall?] I asked.

[?] the ants replied. Of course they don’t know, I thought, they can’t even see anything down here most of the time.

[Prepare to push again, as far as you can this time,] I wrote.

[Risk battle lose,] the ants responded. [Loss hurt catastrophic.]

[If we kill the enemy queen, will you win the battle?] I asked.

[Yes,] the ants replied. So the queen definitely plays an important role then, I thought.

[Immediately?] I asked.

[?] the ants asked back. Of course, they have issues comprehending time, I thought.

[What happens to the otherant colony when we kill their queen?] I asked. The ants churned and thought about it, then made a number of vague symbols before forming words.

[Cannot,] they wrote. They don’t know how to explain it in words, I thought.

[Will the otherant colony be able to harm us if their queen is dead?] I asked.

[Two if queen,] the ants responded. Of course, I sighed.

[Do you know if they have two queens?] I asked.

[No,] and ants replied.

[How likely is it that they have two queens?] I asked, grumbling aloud.

[?] the ants responded.

“What?” Vaozey asked, reacting to my vocalization.

“If there are two queens in the enemy colony, we’re going to have to retreat after killing one,” I said.

“Two queens?” Vaozey growled, echoing my internal displeasure unknowingly.

“Just be prepared to run away, or through,” I said, turning back to the wall. [Prepare to push again,] I wrote. [We will kill the queen now.]

After spending ten minutes building up forces that seemed to pour from the walls by the liter, the sameant swarm surged forward once again, cutting a thin path through the field of battle. Unlike the last time, the ants didn’t attempt to spread out evenly and hold territory, instead clumping together at the front and pushing while allowing their rear to be cut off. Vaozey and I walked along behind, seeing the detached piece of the sameant colony slowly being whittled down as they attempted to keep the otherant colony from approaching and detecting us. We got around thirty meters deep before the enemy response was finally strong enough to kill the last of them, forcing us to rely on our magic.

Like before, the ants tried to impede our movement first, then resorted to raining off of the walls when that wasn’t enough to completely stop us. Unlike before, we weren’t looking to scout anything, and instead just walked as quickly as we could to the back wall, trudging through insects layered up to our knees and holding them at bay by boiling them alive.

“Where is it?” Vaozey asked, raising her voice so she could be heard over the intense noise of hissing and clicking.

“Not sure, but…” I looked around, reading the flows of the ants. “It’s probably not in the first layer of chambers. Entry and exit points look like they’re here, and there.” I pointed at the two places that I knew for sure had to have holes in the rock, about three meters apart.

“So how do we stop the acid?” Vaozey asked.

“Just kill everything inside,” I replied. “I’ll take the left, you take the right. How much longer can keep the attacks at bay?” I wasn’t having much trouble with my force magic shields around my face, but Vaozey was practically covered in bugs up to her chest.

“Don’t know,” Vaozey replied, spitting out a few ants. “I’m not frying the ones biting at my arms, just the ones on my face, so I can probably keep this up for a while as long as nothing changes. Seytoydh stings though.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Tell me if you’re losing too much strength. Either way, we’ll retreat as soon as we kill the queen.”

“And if she’s not here?” Vaozey asked, slapping away an ant that was trying to crawl up her cheek.

“This is the rough center of the colony,” I replied. “She’ll be here, it’s all but guaranteed.” Rearing back, I smashed the ant-covered sediment in front of me, snapping it to pieces and momentarily shattering my fist. Just like the other chamber, the section of the nest I revealed contained some kind of mold and about three-dozen pale tender drones. Without pausing, I grabbed each one, crushing and frying two-thirds of them before the others fled out of sight. I heard Vaozey doing the same beside me, though with considerably more cursing.

“Find anything?” Vaozey asked.

“No,” I replied. “Did you kill all the pale ants?”

“Most of them,” Vaozey replied. “Little teylmz are fast.”

“Good, keep digging, try to follow the largest tunnels,” I instructed. “And make sure to duck if they shoot anything at you this time.”